COWHC Ladies 1s vs. Guildford - 3 October 2015

Ah, who can imagine a life without hockey? This was one of those Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah days: the sun was shining, Nicky hadn't been out until 3am, we had the home advantage of the sandpit, Rachel was top to toe in new kit, Kirsty and baby Henry came to say hello, Andrea was wearing her new shirt-dress and LBell timed her pre-match wees perfectly.

These good omens meant we stepped onto the pitch full of confidence, and from the opening whistle everything clicked perfectly into place. Andrea and Rachel were instantly terrier-like in attack, unsettling the opposition with their constant hounding. Guildford were lacking early composure and, in slightly uncharacteristic COWHC style, we were 2-0 up in 10 minutes, as Becky pounced in the D twice to finish off our persistent attacking manoeuvres. Pretending that we were perfectly used to this state of affairs, we went from strength to strength. Today, everyone did their bit and followed Hoops's clear advice: keep up the ball pace and come to meet the ball. It was astonishing how effective this was. With Andrea and Rachel maintaining their momentum, the left hand link of Chloe and Santy was extremely effective in forcing us into attacking positions, while Kat and Becky on the right overlapped to great effect. In the middle, Alex and Nicky found themselves in huge amounts of space and so were able to work the triangles to the left, right and straight ahead. Backing them up were Netty, Lena and LBell, whose confident use of the space allowed us to attack from any area of the pitch. Guildford's slightly lacklustre play meant Sharon had a quiet game in goal, and fortunately we have all forgotten about the goal that went in to bring the score back to 2-1.

It was clear that we were in control of this match from opening to closing whistles. We had a multitude of attacking chances; it was a shame that the ratio of short corners:conversion was sadly woeful ... endless short corners and no goals scored. But it's always good to have something to improve. Highlights of the game, apart from the fabulous team spirit, were Chloe's "Harder!" and Netty taking the call of "Top!" rather too literally and firing a cannonball which felled Alex on the spot. The match closed with a 3-1 victory, as Chloe slammed home a second half goal. A thumpingly awesome victory for the mighty Cows; the memory of last week's defeat is erased and no doubt Whatsapp will be buzzing with tactical discussion later this evening.

Thanks to Ciaran and Martin for umpiring, to Kirsty, Finny and Henry for supporting, and to Hoops for putting up with our endless tactical discussions ...

The team was: Sharon, Kat, Netty, Lena, LBell, Santy, Chloe, Becky, Alex, Nicky, Andrea and Rachel.

PoM votes were 1 each for Rachel, Andrea and Becky, and 3 each for Alex, Santy, LBell and Chloe